the most learned among them and the strongest in memorising ḥadith.
I have never seen his equal in this discipline; he was one of the most reliable transmitters and unsurpassed in accuracy.
Al-Humaydī said, “He was a ḥāfiẓ, a dignified scholar and an author. He wrote books on jurisprudence and on the jurisprudence of the Successors.
He compiled ‘The Jurisprudence of al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’ in seven volumes, ‘The Jurisprudence of al-Zuhri’ in several fascicles, and he arranged a Musnad from what he had received from Qāsim ibn Aṣbagh in a number of volumes.” (1)
Ibn al-Faradī said, “He died in Rajab 380 AH at the age of sixty-six.” (2)

282 – Al-Zuhri, ʿUbayd Allah ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad
The shaykh, the scholar, the trustworthy, the devoted worshipper, the Musnad of Iraq: Abū al-Faḍl ʿUbayd Allah ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd Allah ibn Saʿd—son of the ḥāfiẓ Ibrāhīm ibn Saʿd ibn Ibrāhīm, grandson of the Companion of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf al-Qurashī al-Zuhri al-ʿAwfī al-Baghdādī.
He was born in 290 AH and, beginning in 298 AH, heard ḥadith from: Ibrāhīm ibn Sharīk al-Kūfī, Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad al-Firyābī, ʿAbd Allah ibn Isḥāq al-Madāʾinī, Muḥammad ibn Ḥumayd ibn al-Mujaddir, al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad ibn Shuʿbah, Abū al-Qāsim al-Baghawī, Ibn Abī Dāwūd, and many others.
He stood unrivalled in his time.